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Tuesday, January 23, 2007

Welcome to the Newberry

The Newberry Library is a historical library in downtown Chicago, famous for its incomprehensibly extensive collection of original and rare materials in a variety of special topics. This is a picture of the first floor foyer one first enters after walking in. The Newberry is "open to the public," but to our dismay, we couldn't get past this point on our visit. The security guard had a chuckle and turned us away after reminding us that we couldn't take any more pictures...

Here is some general information about the library.

Walter Loomis Newberry willed in 1850s, when no public library in Chicago existed

Library chartered in 1887

21,000 reference inquiries and 23,400 reader days last year

5,800 registered readers

1,500,000 printed titles

5,000,000 manuscript pages

300,000 maps

Largest collection of rare books in Chicago

All non-circulating

High security

Admission requires one to be 16 Years of age or junior in high school, to have a library card, and to have a feasible research purpose for using the library.

2 comments:

That is really disapointing that the library welcomes the public and then does not let them even step foot into the collections. There really should be something done about this especially because they have so much information that would be useful to so many people.